7.40pm

statement. Help centers were being set up in Sharjah and Dubai in the UAE. According to a playback on flight-tracking website Flightradar24, the plane circled the airport twice before attempting to land. In its second instance, it aborted the attempt with 2,000 feet to go before the crash landing. The so-called tabletop airport has limited space at the ends of the runway, and several international airlines had stopped flying bigger aircraft into Kozhikode

due to safety issues.

“Both Mangalore and Calicut airports do not have the required space on either side of runway for safe landing. The Calicut runway does not have mandatory 155m side strip and there is a 70m drop at either end. We at the Civil Aviation Safety Advisory Council had warned the authorities ten years back that the runway is very risky,” said aviation safety consultant Mohan Ranganathan.